


Psyche, at Midnight, in the Dark

by lnhammer



Category: Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Metamorphoses - Apuleius
Genre: Couplets, Divine Marriage, F/M, MacGyvering a Lamp, Poetry, Romantic Angst, Secret Identity Fail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28733640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lnhammer/pseuds/lnhammer
Summary: She waited one full year and one day morebut still he didn’t tell her. And when forone more last time she asked to see the facethat in the darkness she could only trace,he stopped her with a finger on her lips—“You cannot.”Or, how the stories we tell blind us.
Relationships: Eros/Psyche (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Kudos: 10





	Psyche, at Midnight, in the Dark

She waited one full year and one day more  
but still he didn’t tell her. And when for  
one more last time she asked to see the face  
that in the darkness she could only trace,  
he stopped her with a finger on her lips—  
“You cannot.” She could not resist love-nips  
or gulps—they rarely talked in bed, love-caught—  
and so once more surrendered. They had taught  
each other’s bodies like a blind man learns  
his house, a tactile map of home concerns;  
she knew he wasn’t human from his wings—  
light, delicate yet strong, delightful things  
for flying bedroom games or wrapping her  
in pinions softer than an otter’s fur.  
She knew the stories. After this sweet year  
in bed together, physically sincere,  
didn’t he trust her with the truth? And worse—  
why hadn’t yet her kisses cured his curse?

And so she’d gathered, bit by part, a lamp,  
forbidden in their house: the finest stamp  
of bathing oils, wick twisted from her loom,  
a shallow bowl, kept in the other room  
with steel and stone. Another week went by  
until she could no longer stand the lie,  
the ignorance, the guesses and surmises  
that flowed about her like a storm creek rises,  
and, now, she waited till he slipped to sleep,  
then slid from bed in silent midnight creep.  
Her quiet, wavering flame could barely dent  
the dark to show her way, and, so intent  
upon this shadowed form that she’d embraced,  
she tangled her foot in clothing, strewn in haste,  
and stumbled—and to keep from falling grasped  
the bedpost. Breathe. Then she leaned close—and gasped.

He’d said plain truth about her seeing him:  
beyond the rainbow feathers, long and slim,  
and one red scratch, unhealed, upon his shoulder  
(as if an arrow’d scored a careless holder),  
her flooded eyes, to her arid despair,  
could make no mortal sense of face, nor hair,  
nor hollow of his collar, which felt smooth.  
He didn’t look—he just was. His own truth.  
No monster, no enchanted beast, no king  
held captive by a witch’s conjuring  
or ogre with a ring of spelling crows.  
And in that time between a drop of rose  
and lily dripping from the dish, and splash  
on his bare chest, she knew how wrong, how rash  
her heeding her sisters’ tales of love dismayed,  
of fairies, charming princes, maids betrayed—  
for, here, two visions held her: one, she only,  
grown old without him, lone, alone, and lonely;  
the other, both together, as a sum  
of one & one, not two, not one, but some  
new number that’s both one and two; and she,  
with certainty of pulse and marrow, she  
must live the latter—she would give up all  
to hold that whole, do anything at all  
to stop tale-spinning—learn in sincerity  
and sorrow, sere and seared, to clearly see  
his self, his him, his who he was, instead  
of keeping lives unshared outside of bed—  
do any task of heaven’s citadel,  
anything—even harrow heart and Hell.  
And then the hot oil landed, burning badly.

Eyes opened, grey. “Oh Soul,” he whispered, sadly,  
then flickered out like candle in a gust,  
or Love in hoarded doubt and clutched mistrust.

**Author's Note:**

> First appeared in _Goblin Fruit_ , Winter 2010.


End file.
